Chapter 60: you either make a bed that's cold or you're walking barefoot over coals

That night he sits with Merle on the creaking iron stairs on the side of the building, watching the last of the evening's traffic passing, and they smoke, drink, and it's difficult to be certain of the exact nature of the mood. It's not bad, not really uncomfortable, but it's sure as hell not comfortable either, and there's a tension strung between and all around them that he both understands and is confused by.

It doesn't feel like their normal kind of tension. The kind he's become wearily used to.

Merle told him to fuck off, that he would tell Daryl when there was something to tell, and Daryl was willing to humor him two days ago, humor him yesterday, but this is Tuesday night and the clock is ticking louder and louder, and winding itself closer to a halt.

So he waits until Merle seems mellowed a bit and shifts, his back against the brick and a boot against the lower railing, staring up at the moon - exposed since the clouds started to lighten. Waning further, smaller and smaller each night, and gold. Right now it's traveling behind a haze of cloud, making it look ghostly. Eerie.

"Any news, man?"

Merle grunts. "'bout what?"

"Money you said you was gonna come up with?"

Daryl is expecting Merle to react badly. To give him shit. To cuss him out, to call him names, to declare that he ain't doin' shit no more, and this was fuckin' stupid to begin with, no idea what the fuck you was thinkin', brother, 'cept I know for a fact you wasn't at all.

But Merle says nothing. Not right away. He takes a long drag on his cigarette, takes an enormous swallow of whiskey. He's clearly well on the way to being wasted, but it seems to be a gentle kind of wasted, and he isn't high. Daryl hasn't seen Merle truly belligerent roaring drunk since the fight. He hasn't seen him get really high since the fight, either.

He actually can't remember seeing Merle get high at all since then. He must have, probably when Daryl wasn't around, because there's ample time there, but...

But yeah.

And Merle speaks, quiet. Calm. "I'm takin' care of it, man. 's gonna be fine."

Daryl looks at him for a long moment. He's not very drunk, but he's drunk, and his processing power is impaired by a good bit. So he's not only not sure what to make of this but also not sure how to make of this, and he simply looks and waits for something to come to him.

He has a dim feeling - though it's intense behind the dimness, knowledge of it rather than actual visceral experience of the thing - that something is happening. He felt it before. Hoped for it. But now he feels it, because Merle just doesn't talk like that. Doesn't do these things; doesn't walk into a house like that and talk to a woman like Cathy and not be a jackass. He doesn't restrain himself; he doesn't have an ounce of self-restraint in his being, or at least not one he's ever cared to exercise. And he's made a consistent practice of saying he intends to do things and not following through - which Daryl has learned to appreciate, because at least it's reliable and he can plan around it.

And now.

"You gonna tell me how?" he asks at last.

Merle shrugs. "Won big in a poker game earlier, some asshole owes me a chunk of change now. Said he'd pay up by Friday, I said if he didn't we'd destroy his fuckin' kneecaps." He gives Daryl a small smile full of something that manages to be both triumphant and irritated. "See? Toldja, you fuckin' moron. Ain't gotta owe no prick feels like takin' some kinda pity. Got someone owin' us."

"You actually won a thousand fuckin' bucks in a poker game?" Daryl isn't quite gaping at him - not that level of surprised - but he's staring. Merle is pretty good at poker, or he used to be, but he started sucking at it right about the time the substances started getting used hard - like a lot of things started sucking - and at this point Daryl just assumes the losses will always outweigh the gains in the end.

But if Merle is cutting back on the meth and the booze, even some...

Yeah, it could happen.

Merle glares at him. "Real vote of confidence there, little brother."

"I just..." Daryl shakes his head, slow - not denying but as if he's trying to clear it, which he is. This is plausible. It really is plausible. Plausible that Merle has come through for him.

After two fucking years, come through for him.

"And you're sure he's gonna pay."

"Oh, yeah." Merle blows smoke at the moon and looks almost dreamy. "Yeah, he's gonna fuckin' pay. And if he don't, we got a few days to make sure he does." He rolls his head toward Daryl and his gaze sharpens. "You up for that, man? You are, right?"

Daryl knows what he's asking, and his gut clenches hard and cold. Because he's capable of doing real damage to someone and has done so - has put people in the hospital - but it's been a long time unless he counts Merle, he's never in his life enjoyed it, and he doesn't want to do it now.

But money.

Maybe it won't come to that. He can hope.

He can trust.

"Yeah." He rubs at the scruff on his jaw. "Yeah, I am."

"Alright."

A period of silence, and the tension has dissipated somewhat. Daryl grabs the bottle and takes a sizable swallow, another, and feels deeper mellowness sliding over him. The moon looks bigger somehow. In the distance, faint sirens.

"How's the teenage dream?"

Daryl starts slightly, jerks a glance at Merle. It's possible that he had been drifting into a doze. "What?"

"That girl. She fuck you up yet?"

Yes. Constantly. I hope she never stops. He shrugs and flicks ash down the steps. "Nah, man. Things're good."

Merle grunts, and Daryl thinks he might just leave it alone, but then he doesn't. Of course. Never could. "You never did have any fuckin' sense. All this time I try to get you some tail, this is how you do it." He sighs, and the thing is that he no longer sounds scornful except in the mildest way. It's still there, but it's blunted, and even more... Even more, he sounds amused. "Guess it's somethin'."

"She ain't just tail, bro." Because if they're going to talk about this, fine: they're going to talk about it, and he thinks he's just wasted enough to be fairly relaxed about it. "You the one said it."

"Riiiight." Distinctly mocking, but still... Not as sharp as once it definitely would have been. "You're in love." He shakes his head almost pityingly, plucks the bottle out of Daryl's hands. "You know that shit ain't real, right? That's just your brain givin' you an extra reason to nail 'er 'cause you're fucked up in the head and you think your dick ain't reason enough."

"It's real." Soft. He doesn't want to get into an actual fight about this and he doesn't intend to - and Merle also doesn't really seem like he's looking for one, just talking shit like Merle does - but he's not going to back down. "Just 'cause you ain't never had it don't mean it ain't real."

Merle snorts but doesn't say anything else for a moment or two, and Daryl lets the silence sit, the moon still filling up his eyes. Then, "So how is she?"

Daryl turns his head again, blinks. Merle already asked that. He's reasonably sure. He doesn't think he's far gone enough to actually start manufacturing memories. "What?"

"Is she good? She a good fuck? Good girls ain't so good sometimes." Merle tosses his cigarette over the railing and fishes out another, flicks it alight. "Assumin' you're actually fuckin' her. Finally. Assumin' you're doin' anythin' with her."

Daryl merely looks at him. He shouldn't be surprised. This is exactly the kind of thing Merle would throw out there. This is exactly one of the vaguely imagined reasons why he hadn't wanted Merle to know at all. But now that it's between them and drifting into his head, it's still jarring him. A bit.

"Fuck off, man."

"You don't get to tell me that. All this shit I been doin' for you, you can at least give me some kinda details. Some kinda info. She wearin' you out?"

Daryl closes his eyes and lets the exasperation twitch through him. He's not actually that exasperated, not as much as he might be, or at least he's not feeling it that strongly, and that's nice. But Merle isn't going to fucking let up, is going to be an unbelievable pain in the ass about it, and even though he's pretty sure Beth wouldn't like it...

Maybe he wants to brag. A little. Because he has something so good, so wonderful, something he now knows Merle doesn't have the power to ruin.

Something he doesn't think Merle wants to ruin.

"She's good." He says it in a murmur and he thinks of being lifted with her, all that laughing and the hot ache of how much he loves her when he's making her tremble and moan, and he thinks of exaltation, a word he never would have believed in before.

"She's good," he repeats, hardly more than a breath. "We're good together."

So much more than fucking her.

A pause. Then Merle snorts again, gives him an are you fucking kidding me look, and says, "That's it?"

"That's it."

"You're borin' as shit, man." Merle leans his head back, hands dangling over his bent knees. "At least you're gettin' laid, I guess."

"Yeah." Daryl smiles and warmth floods his veins, his bones, and it's not a bad thing to say. "I am."

Nothing else, nothing for a long time, and Daryl thinks the conversation might really be over. The whiskey level sinks a little lower and then a little lower still, and his relaxation drifts into genuine sleepiness. He's considering making his unsteady way back inside, starting to push himself upright, when Merle speaks again.

"You better be careful, little brother."

Daryl glances at him, very slightly incredulous. That Merle would have to tell him that. Surely Merle doesn't think he's actually that stupid.

"We are. Jesus. Ain't no one gonna find out, we're makin' sure. We been-"

Merle shakes his head. "Ain't what I mean."

This is weird. This whole conversation has been pretty weird, if it comes to that. "The fuck you mean, then?"

Merle looks at him levelly, calmly, but there's something in his face that Daryl can't pin down, and he no longer looks drunk. He looks abruptly stone cold sober.

"I told you, brother. This ain't headin' nowhere good. Can't. Never does." He tosses the remainder of his final cigarette into the night. It turns end over end like a falling star and disappears. Daryl watches it go, suddenly and oddly fascinated, but what follows clangs against the inside of his chest like a bell.

"Ain't headin' nowhere good. 'cause believe me, if she don't break your heart... Man, if she don't break your heart, you are sure as shit gonna break hers."

Wednesday. Colder. Real wind, and it isn't trembling leaves off the trees but tearing them off, hurling them around like someone angrily ripping up papers. The leaves themselves are turning faster and harder, burning toward their peak, red and orange and gold. Fire hues. Even as a kid, even in bad times, he liked these couple of weeks of violent color before the brown death of the winter, and he likes them now. It might be cold but the breaks in the clouds have lingered from the night before, and patches of sun slide across the fields and trees.

He feels better. With the dispersal of the clouds the more personal unseen cloud that's been clinging to his head and his mood has lifted as well, and he suspects that's in no small part due to the fact that the money issue probably has been taken care of. Persistent little doubts are still gnawing at him, but they're little and they're easily ignored. For the most part. He won't completely dismiss them. He'll wait and see what happens. He might be wrong. This might all still go to hell.

But he's generally good at telling when Merle is lying, though Merle is far more skilled a liar than he is. And he couldn't detect any lie there.

He really thinks it's going to be all right.

He doesn't see a lot of Beth. After she comes home she goes almost immediately up to her room with an armload of books. Midterms are looming on the not-too-distant horizon and there are a couple she's not so confident about, in addition to her homework generally ramping up.

Her homework. Every now and then something like that comes along and fucks him up all over again.

Well.

He gives her a faint smile as she passes him in the front hall. She returns it. It's understood without words needing to be exchanged that he'll be available later tonight if she wants a study break.

They're making use of the phone with increasing frequency, which he thinks makes sense - what they want from each other has been subtly altered and their ability to have it in the flesh is severely limited, especially now that the colder days appear to have truly arrived and intend to stay for the duration. And it's something, it's so much better than nothing, but Christ, he wants to fuck her. Kiss her. He wants to touch her. Anything. After moving day that should be somewhat easier - they can both just suck it up where Merle is concerned, and it's not like Daryl won't have a room to himself - but otherwise they're both just going to have to get used to essentially constant unsatisfied desire.

Which isn't the worst thing in the world, but it was a lot more fun when it was self-imposed.

He does see her at dinner. Brush of hands under the table. No more than that this time, but he still has to fight back a shiver. Her fingertips grazing his knuckles, feather-light - what else he knows those fingers can do.

I want you.

They can't say it. Not most of the time. Not together, not eyes meeting. Not aloud. So they'll find other ways. Like he always has, when words - so frequently - fail him.

I want you.

I love you.

He's at the Kroger in the bread aisle when he sees her.

Slight build, short gray hair, and that tense set of her shoulders as she clutches her basket in one hand and reaches up to get some bagels with the other. He considers just moving on past without saying anything, but she's basically going to be their landlady after Cathy leaves, so he supposes it makes sense to be cordial. To appear as normal and unproblematic as possible.

But just walking up to her and saying hi feels... Weird. It feels weird. He needs a reason to be there. Something to explain his presence. The bottom line is that he's just not good at being friendly. Friendly has been a completely alien idea since he was about five years old.

He wasn't going to buy bagels but as long as there aren't any fucking raisins, whatever.

He walks over to stand next to her, reaches up to the shelf, and he's not all that close to her but she starts, jerks her hand back, drops the bag. He's just turning to her to apologize - so far their relationship isn't off to the best start, assuming there's going to be one at all - and he stops.

She looks panicked.

It's only there for a fraction of a second, and then her eyes snap back into focus and a curtain goes down, and she only looks a bit surprised. The actual panic is gone so fast he's not even completely sure he saw it at all. But no. He knows what he saw. She was afraid of him.

She was afraid of him, and she stopped being afraid when she realized who he was.

"Uh. Hi." He bends before she can, picks up the bagels and hands them to her. He doesn't smile but she does - very small but it seems genuine - and takes them from him.

"Hi." She pauses, studying him a little more carefully. "I met you the other day. You're taking Cathy's upstairs."

He nods. Okay, this isn't going so badly. "With my brother. Yeah." He's not sure exactly how one introduces oneself in this kind of situation - handshake? God, that just seems even weirder. The whole thing is weird. The lights in grocery stores - too bright, messing with color - are unfailingly weird. Drifting overhead, Taylor Swift is being oddly intrusive.

midnight, you come and pick me up
no headlights
long drive could end in burning flames
or paradise

The pause itself is getting weird, so he just nods again. "'m Daryl."

"Carol." Still with that tiny smile, and the tension in her is palpably easing, though not fading entirely. So whatever freaked her out, it really wasn't him. Probably.

Huh.

"Yeah, she told us." He hesitates. No, he's stuck being awkward no matter what he does. Might as well just roll with it, because if she spends any significant time around him at all she's going to notice anyway. So he gives her his own tiny smile. "Carol. Cathy. Last one is a C, right?"

For a few seconds Carol looks mildly confused. Then she breaks into a wider smile and breathes a laugh, looks down. Soft. Not entirely at ease. But better still. Maybe.

"Yeah. Mom and Dad thought they were cute. Thank God they stopped at two."

There's another brief pause, and he's beginning to cast about for either something else to say or an excuse to leave when Carol speaks again, her head cocked and a newly thoughtful expression sliding over her features. "Y'know, you're not exactly the type I'd imagine taking that place."

"No?" He wonders if he should be offended. He probably shouldn't, probably has nothing to get offended about; Cathy said he and Merle looked like they were about to rob a liquor store and she was perfectly correct. He knew the second he walked into the fucking house that neither he nor Merle belonged there. On the sidewalk, even.

Except for how he was sure he belonged exactly nowhere else.

"Well, I mean... You saw it. You didn't actually meet them."

"No. They were gone."

"Yeah. Well." One corner of her mouth creeps a bit further upward and takes on the slightest sardonic edge. "You saw the art."

He's not totally sure how to interpret the emphasis on the last word. Once again he resorts to a simple nod.

"The guy's the artist. The girl's a poet. It's..." She laughs again, still just a breath, and shakes her head. "Could be out of a goddamn story. Anyway. You and your brother... You'd be a change."

He rolls a shoulder. "Kinda lookin' for a change."

"That would explain some things, I guess."

"Where's Cathy goin'?" The question surprises him - he's not even sure why he wants to know - but he does, and anyway it might amount to safely general conversation. "Y'know. Just 'cause she didn't say. Kinda wonderin'."

"Cruise. She's been planning it for a while. The people upstairs actually never signed a real lease so they never agreed to give her specific notice way back when they moved in. Them moving out was sort of a surprise and she's been scrambling. Truth is... She probably wouldn't say so, but you both kind of saved her. She hasn't had many people come look at the place."

This surprises him also. "How come? 's nice."

"You know, I don't know. It's kind of strange." Carol shrugs and glances down at her basket - milk, eggs, tomatoes, utterly nondescript. "Anyway, I should, uh... I have to get stuff and get back quick, she needs things for dinner." Her smile is smaller now, just a touch uncertain, and he can tell he's being... not dismissed.

He's being very gently asked to leave her alone now. And it's the gentleness that gets to him.

She's not really very much like Annette. But something about her reminds him of Annette all the same. Something just about how she makes him feel, maybe.

He nods. "Alright. See you... Next week, I guess."

She gives him a response-nod - a farewell-nod, also - and a final tiny smile before she turns and heads down the aisle.

He watches her go for a few seconds. Carol.

Cathy is odd. Cathy is definitely odd. Carol looks bland by comparison. Utterly as nondescript as the contents of her shopping basket.

Except she's not. There's something about her - something he can't identify though he feels close to it - that he thinks might set her apart from the world even more than Cathy.

He'll be getting to know her, probably. Maybe not well, but they'll be... They'll be neighbors, he supposes. Actual neighbors.

He shakes his head. No part of this isn't weird.

It would be weird if it was normal.

Thursday is brighter, warmer. Clear. He's feeling good - better than he has all week. Work goes fast and well and he actually enjoys it in a way he hasn't in a while. It's not just a way to pass the time and make what he supposes - and what surprises him slightly when it occurs to him - is a living. He's making use of his body and his hands - good use, and he's taking pleasure in that.

He knows what it is to take pleasure in that kind of thing when he's tracking, hunting, when he's fully present inside himself. With Beth he's learned to take pleasure in it in all kinds of other ways, and he has the distinct impression that there are places they haven't yet gone to, territory they haven't yet explored. But there's a simplicity in this that's still new as well.

He's working on a farm, is the thing. Maybe. It came to him not that long ago and only in a dim sense, but it's gotten brighter, sharper, more completely realized. He's working on a farm, his hands deep and greasy in machines but also surrounded by life and the making of life. He's not working in some dusty stockroom or handling bags of fertilizer that smell more of chemicals than anything else. He's helping bring in a harvest. He's helping care for animals. After the last of the mid-autumn storms blow through he'll work the treeline around the fields and clear away fallen timber.

Halfway through the day he stops in the wide expanse of packed dirt in front of the barn, in the sun, palms sweat off his forehead and just... breathes.

Tell me what you see.

Dirt. Faint glittering of mica flecks. Little clouds of it stirred by the breeze. Grass, drying, and further off some of it still green. The shadow of the trees, the trees themselves, scatters of light beneath. Fields in the distance, all gold. The house, large and graceful. The sky, blue as a jay's wing with a band of white cloud.

Close your eyes. What d'you hear?

Lowing of the cows. The quiet nickers of the horses, and further away the mutters of the chickens. The leaves and their whispered secrets and the grass whispering back. Piping trills of juncos and the longer, lower calls of sparrows. Back at the house, Annette calling to Shawn. Out on the road, the breathy hum of a passing car.

What about what you smell?

That dry, grainy smell of dust. Sharper scent of crushed grass. Sweet hay. Engine grease and gasoline. The strong, blunt smell of fresh manure, which he's never found all that unpleasant. The lingering bite of the last cigarette he smoked.

What do you feel?

Like he could have this. Like he really could. Like this is something he could have. Like he could give it to himself. Accept it like a gift.

Like he could open his arms and take the road and fly.

Something breaks that night.

They get stupid. Or maybe it's not stupid. Maybe it's teenage daring, both of them. Both of theirs. All those years he was cruel enough to point out dissolve into the haze-halo around the waning half moon and it's just them, meeting by the ruined barn in the dark half an hour after he was supposed to be gone, him in the shadows and her coming across the field to meet him, bathed in the moonlight. Soaked in it. It rains down on her the color of thick cream and it streams from her hair, trickles down over her skin.

He plucks the cigarette from between his lips and breathes smoke like a dragon in a cave. She's a maiden; he's waiting to devour her.

Except that's not how this goes, because he knows those old stories and dragons always lusted after the maiden's purity, and she's the purest being he's ever known but there's nothing pure about her. Her hands are already working at his belt the second she shoves herself into him, and he does what he's thought about, what he told her he would do, and he practically flings her against the ruined barn wall and kisses her until she can't breathe, kisses her like fucking her, both hands forcing their way up her shirt and his fingers toying with her nipples through the thin fabric of her bra. This is everything, everything he wanted to do, everything for which he's been aching for fucking days, and he scrapes his teeth down her jaw as she hooks a leg around the back of his, gets his fly open, gets her wicked little fingers inside and tugs him harder against her with a grip around the base of his cock.

Beth. He moans it against her neck, half laughing, her hands raking into his hair, and it's all chaos, moving, thrusting against her fist and her belly and they're both still dressed.

This is so fucking wonderful, her hand on him, his hands tight on her breasts, mouth open and hot on her throat as she arches and whimpers his name. It's wonderful, but there's another side to this, and beneath the roaring fury of want in his head he's aware of it. They could have taken their time once. He could have laid her down, undressed her slowly, kissed every inch of skin as he bared it; he could have let her undress him, could have shuddered beneath her as she remapped him with her fingers and lips. They could have found their way slowly into each other, flowing lazily through deltas like twin rivers rejoining a sea. It could have all been slow, slow and so sweet.

She's bathed in the moonlight - even now in the shadows with him, somehow she is. The light finds her, falls all around her. But once they could have bathed in each other. Washed each other clean.

Now she's kicking her boots away and he's dragging her jeans and panties down her hips and she's almost clawing her way out of them, trying to kiss him at the same time, teeth knocking against his. Like she can't bear to stop. Like they can't waste a second. Because they can't. Because it's all a risk, it's all insane in a way it wasn't before. Stripping her from the waist down, hands rough on her hips, her thighs, fuck, where's the condom, he almost tears it getting it on and she's hissing Daryl, c'mon, oh God, I need you, I need you so bad, please, and he takes her by the hips and lifts her, thighs around his waist and her hands groping at him, nails digging into his arms, and he has to bite down hard on his lip to keep from crying out when he buries himself in her.

She does cry out. He's aware enough to take it into himself even as he starts to move, thrusting into her with a kind of frantic need he hasn't felt with her before. She sounds like something has cracked open in her, relieved and exulting in it but also something painful, and it's still there in her sharp gasps as he curves his palms under her ass and fucks her into the wall.

It's because it's good, that he wants this and he wants it so hard and so much. Things are good, things are getting better, he can have this, he can, and oh God, oh my God, oh, he wants it and he wants her and it's like sucking in air, her tongue and his teeth and her cunt on fire around him.

He wants it because it's good. It's so good. It's so good.

Beth, oh fuck, oh my God, oh Beth, Beth, girl, FUCK. Making her name a curse and coming like a snarling dog, rutting in her, her teeth bared against his throat and she's mouthing things he can't make out as he convulses against her. And he doesn't stop, fucks her even harder and she grinds back to meet him, yanks at his hair and jerks her head up and opens her mouth in a silent scream to the waning moon.

Half collapsed against each other. Panting. Struggling to stay upright. She's heavy and he's weak and he has to release her, sliding out of her, her legs slipping back down his hips and catching herself. But she doesn't let go; she holds on, arms around his neck, drops a hand between them and peels the condom off him. Tosses it into the weeds and the rotting boards and shadows of fallen stone; no one will find it.

And this place isn't a sanctuary.

He wraps his arms around her and clings to her, and Christ, he wishes they had taken their time. It was so good, but. But he wishes they had.

It's getting cold and she's still a little flame in his arms but now she's shivering. He cups the back of her head, lips against her temple. I love you, Beth.

I love you so much.

"I don't wanna go," she whispers as she pulls her panties on, tugs her jeans back up. "Daryl..." She laughs, pushing her hair out of her face, and he locates her boots. "God, I wish we could stay."

He frames her burning face with his hands and tilts it up and kisses her. Kisses her slow - takes the time. A torn fragment of it. Stolen.

He'll have a place. He'll make a place. A place for them, just them, and they'll get all that time back. The world won't make a bed for them now but he will, deep and warm and soft, worthy of her, and he'll lay her down in it and they'll have time.

They'll have all the time in the world.

Note: song is "Style" by Taylor Swift